Reunion will benefit Columbia River grad’s nonprofit in Nicaragua

Doug Effinger’s mission trip to an orphanage in Nicaragua in 2000 changed his life.

“You feel the heat, you smell the smells, you’re out of your comfortable environment,” said Effinger. “With all that going on, I saw these kids living in conditions we wouldn’t allow anybody in our country to live in. They just stole my heart.”

That means dirt floors, no electricity, meager education and the occasional landslide or washout that leaves a village landlocked and washes some people away.

It’s not a pretty picture, but Effinger fell in love. Over the course of several more trips, Effinger’s wife, Julie, did too. Within a few years, the couple had sold their Felida home and purchased some Clark County rentals to generate income. They worked with one orphanage in Managua, the capital city, and then helped another orphanage pick up and move to an entirely new campus that Effinger helped build.

“I was building buildings and helping find the funding to build buildings,” said Effinger, whose background is in construction, remodeling, heating and air conditioning. He is a 1978 graduate of Columbia River High School. “It was a 25-acre property with children’s homes, guesthouses, sports facilities — it was really cool.”

Eventually, the Effingers started their own nonprofit organization, aimed at matching ambitious Nicaraguan young adults with educational opportunities. It’s called Nica-Impact and it’s a sort of subsidized boot camp, Effinger said, for poor rural students eager to study subjects such as nursing, engineering and business management.

Nica-Impact has two residential homes, for young men and young women — Casa Juan Marcos and Casa Esther — in the small city of Jinotepe, which is about 45 kilometers south of Managua. There are five universities in the immediate area, he said, and more schools available for students who are willing to travel a little farther.

“Our commitment to them is, we’re going to provide the resources to study and you’re going to do well,” he said. “There’s a high level of responsibility.”

Schooling is only part of the challenge for kids who’ve grown up with dirt floors and cooking fires, he added. “We bring them into homes where there’s a refrigerator and a microwave and a gas stove. It changes the way they think. It’s culture shock at first.” But it points the way to a more modern life, he said, with high expectations and a greater chance for success.

The Effingers are also building a grant-funded community library and classroom on Nica-Impact property in Jinotepe to broaden their educational mission to the whole community; and Doug is working on a small “aquaponics” program that grows both fish and vegetables in a soil-free greenhouse environment, he said.

But his real passion these days is building pedestrian suspension bridges across rivers and ravines in this tropical and disaster-prone country.

“I help with logistics,” said Effinger. “I go find a location where a bridge could go, I talk to the community and the mayor, I get the approvals.” Then, students from the U.S. who are affiliated with university-based chapters of nonprofit agencies Bridges to Prosperity and Engineers Without Borders show up to do the design work and labor “hand in hand with the local communities” on the actual excavation and construction.

Nica-Impact — “such a small (non-governmental agency) that hardly anybody knows about us,”‘ Effinger said — is all about Nicaragua, but it’s governed largely by folks here in the Pacific Northwest. Take a look at http://www.nicaimpact.org/ to learn more.

Or, you can meet the Effingers — and many of their old pals — when they all get together for the 35th reunion of the Columbia River High School class of 1978. The event, featuring live music, will be a fundraiser for Nica-Impact too, according to organizer Bud Munson, and it’s set for 3-7 p.m. Saturday at the Icehouse tavern, 7804 N.E. Highway 99. A $10 donation is requested; a little bit of that will go to the “Just Us Band,” but most will go to Nica-Impact, Munson said.

The event is open to other CRHS classes and friends as well, according to Munson. But if you’re not a CRHS alum, please don’t crash the reunion — just visit the website.

Scott Hewitt: 360-735-4525; scott.hewitt@columbian.com; facebook.com/reporterhewitt; twitter.com/col_nonprofits.